


One Eighties

by crazyinfj



Series: Febuwhump 2021 [23]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Based off of Dinozzo’s “hardest one eight in my life” quote, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Gibbs' Rules, Introspection, Jethro Gibbs Needs a Hug, POV Jethro Gibbs, Women of NCIS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:41:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29688966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazyinfj/pseuds/crazyinfj
Summary: Gibbs thinks back to all the women he’s lost, and the one-eighties he’s endured.Febuwhump Day #25 Prompt: Car Accident
Relationships: Jethro Gibbs & Abby Sciuto, Jethro Gibbs & Women of NCIS, Jethro Gibbs/Jacqueline "Jack" Sloane, Jethro Gibbs/Shannon Gibbs, Ziva David & Jethro Gibbs
Series: Febuwhump 2021 [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2135274
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	One Eighties

**Author's Note:**

> I haven’t watched the further seasons of NCIS, because after Ziva and Tony left, I couldn’t bear to. However, I really wanted to do this fic. As for Jack Sloane, I left this open as we all don’t know how this is going to play out.

“I’ve got to do this,” Jack Sloane whispers under her breath. The Afghan desert sun beats down on the two of them, and Gibbs knows that she has to leave. These girls don’t deserve the life they’ve lived, and Jack knows this feeling all too well.

“I know.” Gibbs whispers, close enough that he can feel her breath against his neck. He knows she will leave, and he will be left alone again. But he also knows that this is what she needs to do. 

And he will watch her go, like every other woman he’s ever loved. 

_“Hardest one eighty in my life,”_ his old agent whispers in his ear, and Gibbs can feel their last hug, where he held Dinozzo tightly and told him he was making the right choice. 

One eighties are the hardest when you know it’s the right choice. One eighties are the hardest when you are the one left when the dust settles, to live a life you know will be shadowed by another loss until everyone you ever loved will be gone. 

And you go through the motions, watching as every younger agent’s life is threatened as you, the oldest, are spared. You watch as those you love, not part of the crimes you’ve witnessed, are killed for simply being affiliated with you. At some point, it will be too much. 

\-- 

The liquor burns him more than his mom’s betrayal. 

He didn’t even get to say goodbye. She decided that for him when she killed herself. When she didn’t think of the consequences, didn’t think about her husband, didn’t think about her son. 

Didn’t think of them finding her lifeless on the floor. Didn’t think that her son would spend the next years blaming himself, rather than listening to the logical truths. She hadn’t thought about any of that when she had popped those pills, had she? 

If she can kill herself, he can do that too. 

He stops going by Leroy, in retaliance of Moore, who hid the suicide with soft words and gentle hugs. Eventually, he stops hanging around the school on late afternoons playing football and focuses on his schoolwork, only getting into schoolboy fights when the high school boys act like they’re still in elementary school. Soon, his reputation as a fiery blond kid by the name of Leroy changes into Gibbs, a future soldier, dedicated and introverted. 

The one eighty from his hometown and his old life is the easiest thing he’s ever done. 

\-- 

Joan Matteson always joked that if she heard about Shannon Fielding one more time, she’d “kill herself.” 

Gibbs always laughed and pretended not to hear the fear that rose in his mind. He knows it's entirely too possible for someone to kill themselves. So he becomes more reserved, but she’s his best friend and he can’t avoid her entirely. She is the sister he’s never had, and sometimes things are said without realization. Gibbs clings to this truth as they embark on the lives of Marines in a very dangerous game. He violently hopes she never has to see the horrors. 

She does. She sees the horrors when they take her life away. A helicopter crash takes away his best friend, and he doesn’t cry. Instead, he honors her and rises up to the ranks she couldn’t. 

He mourns the fact that he never told her how much he valued their relationship. She was more of a support to him during this transition than anyone else, and she would never know how much he had appreciated that. 

The one eighty from the barracks where they had laughed so many times was harder than Gibbs thought it would be. 

\-- 

“See you at the altar, future husband.” Shannon giggled, and it’s music to Gibbs’ ears. 

“I love you.” Kissing her hand, he lets her run back to her room, where her bridesmaids are shrieking about one thing or another. 

The last thing he sees before she slips behind the door is her long red hair, bouncing happily. He promises himself to remember that image, remember the joy that even hair can possess. 

That one-eighty into his own room is the most excited he’s ever been for change. 

\-- 

“Don’t go!” Kelly sobs as Shannon holds her back. Gibbs squeezes his eyes shut, hoping that will drown out his daughter’s cries. 

It doesn’t. Instead, it intensifies it, singling out all other senses. All he feels is his daughter’s hug, Shannon’s soft hand on his cheek, and the small, barely there kiss she gives as a farewell. 

Knowing he won’t see them for a very long time, he closes his eyes and lets himself dedicate the current image into his mind, to comfort him during long nights and remind him what he’s fighting for. The safety of his wife and kid, that’s the most important job of his. He waves goodbye from the truck, not realizing it’s the last time he’s ever going to see them. 

Maybe if he knew, he’d make the hardest one eighty in his life last longer. 

\-- 

A car crash redefines his entire life. Pure, loving Shannon, and innocent, sweet Kelly are killed by a drug lord. The murder is being investigated, but Gibbs knows this won’t bing them back. 

It won’t restore a thousand memories Gibbs was gone for. Franks says they were under the protection of another soldier. Gibbs doesn't blame him, but he does blame himself. 

He wasn’t here to protect them. He was halfway across the world in Desert Storm. A good soldier, a respected sniper, a decorated Marine, and he couldn’t even protect them. Their safety had been his catalyst during those horrific days, now he’s not sure he can survive those scenes again without them as a lifeline, without them giving him a will to live. 

“I’m sorry.” Gibbs whispers, brushing the grass that’s already growing on their graves. He’s been gone for too long. There’s no way they could forgive him, if they were alive to do so. “I’ll make sure others are safe.” 

That’s what Shannon would want, he knows. 

Leaning on the gravestone of his wife and daughter, he’s surrounded by them for one last night. 

When he wakes up, sore and confused, when he makes the one eighty from their graves, ghosts accompany him. 

\-- 

Partially because he and Shannon never talked about it, and because he can’t lose another person, he vows not to love again. And for a while, it works. Until he’s undercover. 

Turns out, that promise to himself is just a brick wall keeping him from losing another person. But when that wall falls, it crashes loudly. Fighting his feelings, he falls for his fellow agent Jenny Shepard in Paris. The city of love, it’s very fitting. 

They’re both passionate and it’s intense. Jenny is not like Shannon, gentle and warm, rather Jenny is hot and fiery, like her hair, and Gibbs is drawn in. He protects her like he couldn’t protect Shannon, and he allows himself to muse that maybe, someday, they could go public, instead of hiding in corners and behind closed doors. 

When the dear john letter comes in the mail, Gibbs realizes that even if he doesn't initiate the one eighty, the one eighty turn is the slicing of one singular unit, and it hurts both sides. Burying his feelings, he creates Rule #12. 

\-- 

Diane Sterling is yet again a redhead. She’s a lot like his mom, and maybe in hindsight, that’s a red flag. But love is blind, and so Gibbs falls for yet another woman, hoping that maybe, he won’t be left behind. He’s not past hope, but he realizes to late that a woman is not just a person he can return home to for comfort when he doesn’t give it back. Once again, he messes up and she’s already got her coat on, bags packed when he returns from work. 

For an explanation, all she says is, “I could never compete with her. She’s dead, yet I’m supposed to still live up to her.” 

When she leaves, she drains his bank account and runs to another man. It’s only a minor consolation that she does the exact same to him a few years later. Fornell and him bond over that fact, only slightly, and it's an unsaid truism surrounding their friendship. 

What she said was not wrong, and Gibbs knows she didn’t deserve a man like him. Diane Sterling was not the love of his life, but when she’s gone, the one eighty Gibbs makes from his master bedroom is painful. 

\-- 

His heart is torn open after her, he hates that weakness, and he knows it’s too soon and too easy when Rebbeca Chase comes tumbling into his life, but he’s lonely and she’s not Shannon, but she’s not here anymore, is she? He’s leaving for Agent Afloat Deployment, but she promises it will be fine. And she fits all his rules, especially number twelve. 

His own rule lets him down. 

It doesn't protect him when his wife is cheating on him. When she’s barely apologetic. All she says is that he’s not home enough, too married to his job, not loving enough. 

Gibbs wonders how much of it is true when he turns and makes a one eighty from their house. How many times will he be trapped in this vicious cycle? 

\-- 

Stephanie Flynn from the beginning, did not fit into his life. He was wound up in his job, and chasing down a murderer consumed him, to the point where he would not sleep, would not eat, or even be a civil person until he tracked the person down. 

And in a foriegn country with barely any friends, Gibbs is surprised she lasts that long, that she puts up with his moodiness, and he knows yet again, he was wrong by another woman who doesn’t deserve this. 

After fourteen months of marriage, it ends with a head wound from a bat and a door slam. This time, he doesn’t even feel sad. For the last months, they had barely seen each other. He hopes she finds a better person that puts her first. 

The one eighty is slightly easier than Gibbs cares to reflect on. 

\-- 

By most standards, Kate should not fit onto the team the way she does. Her banter, her ethics, and her attitude shouldn’t fit. But they do, and Gibbs can come to work secretly happy because _look, I’ve made a family_. Maybe that’s why he’s vulnerable to attack, because he got too comfortable. 

He gets too comfortable and he should know that something will go wrong. It goes wrong when on protection detail for him, she saves him from a shooter. 

It’s all just a ploy. Because that’s not the bullet that kills her. The bullet to the head is etched in his brain, the blood spatter is etched onto his clothing, burnt for good measure. 

Kate Todd was murdered for no better reason than to torture Gibbs slowly, with the loss of every woman he’s ever loved. He realizes that even in a non-combat zone like NCIS, he’s still going to lose every person he’s ever loved. It’s his curse. In an attempt to make his other two family members - Dinozzo and Mcgee - realize what they mean, he disturbs them instead. 

Kate’s death was without reason and she’s always going to be more than an agent. He knows this when he sees the faces of his team following her death. He wonders why they had to suffer with him, when it’s his own faults that have led to this. 

_“Why did it have to be me? Wasn’t one bullet enough Gibbs?”_

Kate’s voice echoes in his mind as he makes a one eighty from her grave, where his agent clutches a medal she doesn’t know she won. 

\-- 

Hollis Mann doesn’t exactly align Rule #12, but she doesn't cross it completely, so Gibbs takes the bait for the sixth time. It’s the first blond he’s ever loved, but maybe it’s time for him to start again. He knows he can't keep searching for a Shannon when she’s six feet under. 

“You should want me, and the fact that you don't makes me wonder why I ever wanted you." 

He struggles to tell her that he does want this, but somehow, she understands his seemingly mixed messages and kisses him. 

Maybe, he can move on from them, finally. 

But the ghosts that followed him from the graves of the two girls he loved more than life itself have come back to haunt him, and like the others, Mann tells him she cannot be in a relationship where he’s still in love with another. 

When she leaves, Gibbs is thankful that she at least was diplomatic. Still, the one eighty makes him wonder why he opens his heart anyways. Back in his basement, he nails his heart’s walls back into place. 

\-- 

Gibbs has already protected Jenny Shepard more times than he can remember. But when her father comes back up, Gibbs finds himself back in that position. 

This time it’s wrong, because he’s an agent and she’s a director. But he’s powerless compared to her and events will fall into place even if he does not follow. 

But as he stares at the diner, he wonders if it was worth it. 

This should’ve never happened, but he can’t blame Ziva and Tony, they followed orders. As a result of her need for answers, Jenny died surrounded by blood, her clothing stained by what previously kept her alive. 

As he and Mike Franks burn her house, he stares at the flames, wondering how they so perfectly mirrored the reflection in Jenny’s eyes. 

Turning away from what was now a blazing house fire, Gibbs makes a one eighty from his former lover, and finally, lets her go. 

\-- 

Alex Quinn didn’t train him personally, but Gibbs knew her well before she joined the team, as she was the ex-fiance of his mentor, Mike Franks. 

Because of this, and Quinn’s years of experience, Quinn is more like a sister to Gibbs, like Matteson. For a time, he doesn’t hear her name, but then she returns to NCIS and winds up on Gibbs’ team, and it seems weird that she ranks _below_ him when she’s been doing this longer. 

But they work, she’s quick-witted and keeps up with him, and they share a lot of the same methods as they both worked with Franks extensively. Maybe that’s the bond they share in the end. He smiles when she talks, and while there’s a romance rumor around them, Gibbs knows there’s nothing there. 

And he’s happy like that. That’s why, when she says she has to leave, to take care of her dying mother, Gibbs can smile and support her. Because that’s what siblings do for each other. That one eighty is both painful and bittersweet, and with strength he didn’t know he had, he smiles when she goes. 

\-- 

When he had first met Abby, to say he was puzzled would’ve been an understatement. But the electric personality of the “happiest goth ever” drew him in, and over the years, a familial bond had grown between him. Out of everyone on the team, he felt the closest to her. Maybe it was because she wore her heart on her sleeve like she did. 

Maybe it was because she was the first daughter figure he had after Kelly, and he was trying to be the father he couldn’t have been to her. 

She’s been traumatized by Reeves’ death, and Gibbs knows that when she stepped into NCIS she had big shoes to fill. Now, she’s outgrown them and it’s time to restart. Still, it hurts knowing that she’s leaving. He can’t hold onto her, can’t protect her from old ghosts and new sorrows. 

When she writes the letter, he’s almost glad she didn’t come into the house, if he hugged her now, he’s not sure he’d be able to let her go. He’d kiss her cheek and hold her close, and he wouldn’t be the father figure he’s supposed to be, because he wouldn’t let her leave. 

Instead, he watches her out the window. 

“I love you” She signs, and Gibbs signs it back, hoping to convey all that he needs in that simple gesture. When she responds with a teary smile, he knows he did. From his window he spends the last moments watching her turn and make her way to the car, to a place he can’t follow. 

Making the one eighty turn from the window is saying goodbye to another daughter, and he isn’t sure if he has the strength to repair his broken heart this time. 

\-- 

Ziva David was hard to accept at first. She came at a time when she was not welcome. If she was supposed to be a replacement for Kate, Jenny didn’t have the authority to make him see her as that. With that mindset, he was unnecessarily hard on her. 

But Ziva David befriends Mcgee, and has something too close to romance with Tony for Gibbs to ignore. He knows that Ziva is trying to befriend Abby, and he sees how Abby’s mindset is the same as his. Ducky however, always the gentleman, greets her as a new friend, perhaps even as another daughter he adopts in his line of work. 

She fights for a place, at first out of obligation, but she’s always lived in a world of men, in a world against her. Soon she becomes Ziver and Gibbs sees her as something more than an agent, just like Kate. However, she differed from Kate greatly as Gibbs did not get the same opportunity to be the father figure, as Kate had been older and less in need of one. 

And the tragedy of fatherhood is losing a child. Or in his case, children, daughters. 

He thought he had suffered, he thought he had finally gotten over her death when the bombing had been announced, when there was nothing he could do but stare at the face of Tony, who loved her. He had buried her deep in his box of regrets, so deeply he’s all but moving on the next day. It wasn’t right, not to chase after her, to verify the facts, but none of that matters because here she was, showing up at his house, years later, turning his life over again. He finally gets to have the proper “last hoorah,” and it’s a better way to remember her, than imagining her all alone in Israel. 

When she boards the elevator, he doesn’t have to say anything, only whisper a soft “Ziver,” as she winks at him. 

That one eighty was what she needed, and she doesn’t know how much she’s hurting him, turning over dust that was previously settled, but Gibbs knows that the knowledge of her being alive will comfort him. After all, it’s his job as a father to protect her. He will protect her from himself as well, protect her from his hug - because like Abby, he wouldn’t let her go. Not again. 

\-- 

Gibbs knows that his life is and will continue to be narrated by the loss of the men and women he loves. But he’s made rules for this, and he knows that they all played a part in his narrative. So adhering to Rule #11, his job in their lives, and theirs in his, is done, so the only choice he has is to walk away. With that driving him, Gibbs finds the strength to turn away from Sloane’s retreating figure and takes the first step forward.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven’t watched NCIS in a while...so I’m not sure if all of this is correct, because that paired along with writing this for only two-ish hours...there’s probably a million mistakes :)
> 
> For reference:  
>  **Rule #12:** Never date a coworker.  
>   
>  **Rule #11** When the job is done, walk away  
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> [Crazyinfj’s Tumblr! (aka the writer, who just wanted to write a sad fic about Kelly & Shannon and look at what I ended with...)](http://crazyinfj.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [Eylle9’s Tumblr! (aka the beta, who isn’t really part of this fandom but still the best and deserves a shoutout)](https://tumblr.com/blog/eylle9)


End file.
